OUT OF CHAOS

I used to live with a certain Dominican who always swept and cobwebbed his room before he got down to preparing an important sermon. For him it was as though an orderly environment helped him to have an orderly mind.

Not so for me. I'm one of those people who thrive on chaos and confusion. My small desk has to provide space for my laptop and printer, as well as scanner...all of them attached to cables that seem to have lives of their own -like a bunch of writhing snakes. They don't need any help from me to weave themselves into a tangle.

In one corner there's a collection of small pharmaceutical bottles that now holds paper clips, a variety of pins, and elastic bands. In another corner there's a pile of papers and books.

I've always had a problem with organising my pens, pencils and crayons. All of them find accommodation in a rather elegant wicker basket ....but -and it's a big 'BUT' -it's always troublesome to find the item I need amidst all this jumble.

The Good Lord must have a special compassion for me. On numerous occasions he plants weird and wonderful ideas into my head, fantastic connections, and interesting uses for objects that were designed for utterly different purposes. These flashes of insight come in moments of tranquillity, such as when I'm enjoying a quite time in the chapel or when I'm vigorously lathering in the shower.

I don't see these as distractions. For me they are divine interventions. They're so obviously helpful to me that in my excitement I thank and praise the Lord for His own inventiveness, which He has shared with me. I can't think that the devil would be so kind and considerate!

So, it came to me like a flash of lightning that my pens and pencils, etc. could be well organised with something like an inverted saucer of wire mesh...the sort of thing placed in vases for the arrangement of flowers. So, off I went to the stores in town that sell home and garden furnishings. No luck there.

Next move was to Skype Isidore with the exciting news of my latest brain-wave and of my fruitless treasure hunt. He welcomed the challenge with the eagerness of a ferret sniffing around a rabbit burrow. Such was his zest to dash off to the 'Charity Shops' in Leicester.

And look what he found (photographed above)! Our guess is that originally it was placed on a grave to hold the beautiful flowers of mourning and continuous devotion.

I pause to glance at my untidy desk, which I now bracket with the first chapter of the Bible. The primordial chaos prompted God to bring into play his creative genius to draw order out of chaos. He then decided what He could make of it. God was obviously delighted in what He had done with His mind having being totally open to the possibilities of creation ...some of them ingenious, fantastic, awesome, beautiful.

I'm excited that in rare and precious moments God takes us outside and beyond the obvious into the realm of the fanciful and the creative....what's fit for the graveyard becomes fit for my desktop!

Peter O.P.

Next week Isidore will meet God through interruptions